Re: Colon Operator: Superfluous Syntax?

[Brian Hagerty <Brian.Hagerty@...>]

Kein-Hong Man wrote:
> Wow, another hot discussion. Sounds like a religious preference. Well, 
> no offense, but if you can convince Guido van Rossum to do it first, 
> then maybe I will sit up and pay attention.

You're right, colon-free versus colon-full function definitions 
is probably a religious preference.  If the choice between a 
dot-syntax and a colon-syntax exists, programmers should just 
choose what they are most comfortable with (perhaps because they 
were used to similar syntax in another language).

I personally would like to see a colon-free and hidden argument 
alternative in Lua for object.method calls just for the sake of 
elegance in the language.  I believe this can be easily done 
with an implementation of self that doesn't use the "hidden 
argument" implementation pattern that I described in my previous 
post.

In any case, it's a wish list item that in fact amounts to a 
religious choice. -- Call me a hidden argument, colon-atheist!

Cheers,

// Brian